May 19, 2002

The aurora of May 19, 2002 was unexpected as I had not seen any alerts posted on the web. I had been out observing that evening, trying to do CCD imaging of asteroids, but gave up when the sky became too cloudy. As I was packing the telescopes away, I noticed that the northern horizon was becoming quite bright. Then I noticed several rays heading upwards and realised that there was an aurora in proress. Since I had already packed away the telescopes, I decided to head away from the lights of the campus to where the skies were darker, and take some photographs.

60 seconds exposure, Fuji Superia 200 film.
50mm Nikkormat lens at f/2.
The aurora in Casseopia. Several rays are visible along with both red and green colouration. The yellow in the image is a result of the light pollution from Minneapolis, about 45 km to the north. It was particularly bad that night due to all the cloud over the city.

45 seconds exposure, Fuji Superia 200 film.
50mm Nikkormat lens at f/2.
After about 15 minutes of observing, the aurora became brighter and more active, with many rays visible.

60 seconds exposure, Fuji Superia 200 film.
50mm Nikkormat lens at f/2.
Another pair of bright rays head up into Casseopia. At this time the clouds on the northern horizon had cleared a little, allowing the aurora to be visible down to the horizon as a greenish glow.

After about 25 minutes, the display died down to a diffuse glow. The red in this photograph was only very faintly visible to the eye, however the green regions were still quite bright.

120 seconds exposure, Fuji Superia 200 film.
50mm Nikkormat lens at f/2.

120 seconds exposure, Fuji Superia 200 film.
50mm Nikkormat lens at f/2.

After another 30 minutes there was a brief increase in brightness, however it was short-lived and there were no rays visible. After this the clouds started to return, so I ceased observations.

60 seconds exposure, Fuji Superia 200 film.
50mm Nikkormat lens at f/2.

60 seconds exposure, Fuji Superia 200 film.
50mm Nikkormat lens at f/2.